Finch
by Pinfeathers
Summary: Harold is a bird, John is broken and homeless. They don't know it yet but they both need each other - so fate draws them inexplicably together. - Animal AU Bird!Finch
1. Whistle

Part 1:

I watched the city from my perch on the roof of the New York Public Library. I puffed up my feathers a little against the chill breeze. The autumn had been unusually warm, and many of the flocks had waited until much later than usual in the season to south. But it was now late October and the weather was finally starting to get cooler. Something in the air told me that this winter was going to be particularly nasty once it got started. The nights were already quite cold - too cold for a little bird like me. I would have to go south this year and soon, but I was loathe to leave New York, as I always was.

I watched the people come and go from Bryant park. The big pigeons flicked around the park benches and their occupants, quarreling over scraps and seed thrown to them by the humans. The people and pigeons, both would be around all winter to keep each other company through the winter. No matter how cold it got, the plump pigeons would be all right. I however, was liable to find myself frozen to a gable somewhere by spring. In my youth I did a fair amount of traveling during migration, but I've never found another place quite like New York. Now I mostly stayed in New York, year round if I could help it. Only leaving to go farther south when the coming winter threatened to be too bitter.

I loved the library. It was terribly dangerous to go inside - as it was to go in any maintained human structure – but I loved being around all the books. The smell of all those pages of print and old bindings, the quite rustle of paper when the humans leafed through them. I have sat for hours, perched out of sight on the dusty tops of tall shelves. Its risky sneaking in and out through old, damaged vents in the rafters but it was worth it to be surrounded by the books. Even out on the roof, the smell of the library filtered up and soothed me. Just being nearby filled me with happiness.

As much as I loved the library though, it was time to stretch my wings, and maybe get some food. I spread my wings and flapped my way over the park and into toe corridors of buildings that made up the lattice work of New York City.

I winged my way Southeast down 5th Avenue for nearly a mile, just feeling the wind and the rush of the city bellow me. It was near rush hour and people and traffic thronged through the city streets. I cut across Maddison Square Park, stopping briefly to alight in a tree for a quick rest. I fluttered down to the sidewalk and plucked up a cricket I happened to spot crossing the open concrete, making a light snack of the crunch critter. I headed down Broadway, watching the colorful flow of people on the sidewalk bellow me, bustling along without so much as a passing glance as I soared above them. I followed Broadway as far as Waverly Place, then turned off and lost myself mindlessly in the crisscross of streets to the west, towards Washington Square Park. I stopped following the roads, instead flapping my way up, and over buildings and blocks as it pleased me. I stopped occasionally to catch my breath and a few times to snatch up a particularly unfortunate insect that caught my eye.

Pleasantly full, I continued to flit from street to street. I knew I still had a couple more hours of daylight left and I could easily find a place to perch for the night somewhere in Washington Square.

When I needed to rest my wings again, I found a nice fire escape in an alley, and perched there. As I was catching my breath I took a moment to look up at the clouds being stained pink as the sky slowly darkened. I let out a happy trill to the sunset.

I was understandably surprised when I got an answer.

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John took another swig of whiskey, relishing the rough burn of the cheep alcohol sloshing down his throat. He kept half an eye on the traffic beyond the mouth of the alley. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, and at this point he didn't particularly care about what anyone in the rest of the world was doing anymore. Old habits died hard though. Even years out of the service, sitting in an alley smelling of the cheep booze he was attempting to drown himself in, he was constantly aware of his environment.

The hand not holding the paper-sack-wrapped bottle was lying limply, palm up in his lap where he could stare at it intently. John could still imagine the blood that had stained his hands, both real and figurative. So many lives had been snuffed out by his hands. Many had probably deserved it but perhaps no all. Even when the hits had been ordered directly by his handlers in the CIA, he doubted their motivations in many cases.

In the beginning he had been sure he was working for the good guys- that he'd been serving his country. As time wore on though, he became less and less sure. It became just a job that had to be done. Maybe- he thought, maybe if he hadn't been doing that job he could have saved Jessica. Instead he'd gone off on another mission for the damned CIA and they had betrayed him.

John had barely escaped what was meant to have been his grave – a demolished, burnt-out complex somewhere in China. The CIA thought he was dead. Everyone though he was dead. And Jessica – the one person he might have finally confided in, that he might have told that he wasn't dead – she was dead herself.

Now he made himself at home in alleys and homeless camps, only venturing out to find more alcohol in a desperate attempt to numb the pain – and drink himself to death if he was lucky.

John turned his gaze to the slice of the sky he could see between New York's buildings. He watched a flock of pigeons fly overhead, dark shapes against the stained glass sky as they returned to the rooftops to roost. John took another swig of whiskey and spared one last glance to the sky.

A single small shadow caught his attention this time. Unlike the pigeons, this bird flew alone, and it flew towards him. The smaller bird drew closer, and closer, slowly resolving to form a black silhouette to a small, brown bird. John watched the little bird land on a fire escape only a stone's throw away. The creature sat quietly for a minute after folding its wings. It too seemed to be watching the sky. Suddenly I let out a bright, happy sounding trill.

On a whim, aided by his partially inebriated state, John pursed his lips and gave a high whistle back. The bird's head snapped around to face him quicker than the blink of an eye and its tail feathers flipped up to attention behind it. It stared down at him with its dark, beady bird eyes, absolutely still. Jon made no move, holding perfectly still and staring right back. After several frozen moments the bird blinks, hopping to turn its body towards him. It twitches uncertainly for a moment before fluttering down to a lower landing of the fire escape. It was still far out of reach, but John is none the less astonished at its actions. The little brown bird seemed just as unsure, bobbing and turning its head every which way, as if trying to get a better look at him.

John suddenly doesn't quite know what to do, so he just keeps sitting still and watching the little bird steadily. After a minute or so he decided to see what happens if he whistles again. Before he can though, the screeching of old hinges echoes through the alley like a shot. The bird and John both snap around to look at the source of the noise. A worker in a grease stained apron has pushed open the back door to one of the buildings farther down the alley and is heaving a full to bursting plastic garbage bag into the nearby dumpster. Even as he registers this, John hears the panicked flutter of wings and looks back just in time to glimpse tail feathers disappearing over the rooftops.

John inexplicably found himself with a distant sense of loss. The bird was the first thing that had captured his attention in a long time. The first creature, animal or human, that had shown any interest in him in even longer. "Oh well," he muttered when the aproned worker had returned to work and slammed the door behind him, "It's gone now." He took another swig of whiskey.


	2. Fire Escape

John watched the skies more closely, or more closely than anything else – which was to say he spared the slice of sky above him a glance between swigs of cheap booze more often than he spared glances for anything else in his dismal little hole in the wall.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting really, but he didn't see the bird again. After a week of nothing but noisy flocks of pigeons intermittently passing over, his attention returned primarily to his booze and his grimy hands. He still spared an occasional glance to the fire escape at sunset through, as if he was hoping to see the little brown bird sitting there, staring back at him.

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My heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. I flew as fast as I could up out of the alley and a way towards Maddison Square. _What had I been thinking!? Humans were dangerous! I-I could have- could have_… I alighted on a roof edge overlooking the park and fought to calm my breathing.

I hadn't even noticed that the man had been there when I'd landed on the fire escape. He'd been so still and quiet, dressed in old worn clothes and so grimy to be indistinguishable from the wall he leaned against. It was unusual for humans, but I had seen his like before. There were humans who stayed out on the streets at night and slept outdoors beneath the stars like the rest of us – yet this was not normal for them. These humans were always sad and unkempt looking, like they didn't have any time for preening, but all they seemed to do was sit around and consume foul smelling liquid from glass bottles.

I didn't understand, but I found myself oddly fascinated by this apparently homeless human who had answered my call. I had not asked for an answerer with it, but his whistle had unmistakable been an answer, all the same. In truth, I had only flown away because that loud noise had startled me. If it hadn't been for that, I didn't know what would have happened.

It was eight sunrises before I got up the courage to go back. I had spent much of that time hiding in the rafter of the library, gathering my thoughts, surrounded by the comfort of the books. The nights were getting steadily colder then and I knew I'd have to fly south very soon, before the storms came. I realized I didn't know what homeless humans did during storms. Surely it would be harder for them to find a warm place to shelter themselves, as large as they were. I resolved that I had to visit this human again before I left.

I flew down Broadway, cutting a much straighter path to the alley when I left the main streets this time. I arrived on the buildings adjacent to the alley well before evening, and took a moment to calm myself, then crept up to the roof's edge to peer down into the shadowed alley. I squinted a bit, trying to discern the grungy figure from the grimy ground.

There! I spotted his still form, now laying down, spread out on his back, but still clutching a paper wrapped bottle in his out-flung arm. His free arm was thrown across his face, blocking out the early afternoon sunlight and hiding his features except for his full grey beard that stuck out beneath.

All right, I had seen him, then what? I waited a few minutes, but he did not stir, or show any inclination to move from where he was. Making up my mind, I gave a tentative tweet and that time I saw him move his arm slightly and turn his head like he was looking… At the fire escape… Oh! He was expecting me. My heart was filled with both excitement and trepidation at the realization. I should have left, really, I should have just gone then – but curiosity got the better of me.

I flitted across the alley and settled myself on the same part of the fire escape that I had initially occupied. I let out a louder and slightly longer call this time, more insistent. Finally his arm left his face and his head tilted up to get a clear view and our eyes locked for the second time. Abruptly he sat up and I started, taking a hop backwards in instinctual response. He stilled and simply watched me while I tried to calm my racing pulse.

His eyes were somewhat wild, and it seemed he was surprised to see me. He made a shape with his lips and whistled back to me, just as he had the first time. I resisted the urge to preen, having gotten a satisfactory response from the human.

Instead, I cautiously flitted lower on the fire escape, just as I had then. I waited there to see what he would do next. After a moment he whistled a pair of sounds at me, going up in pitch at the end in the way I'd noticed human speech tended to when they expected a response. I answered him with a complicated trill of accomplishment and feeling emboldened, fluttered down another level.

He made a noise then, a human noise I did not understand. "Eh – lohe" he said and I turned my head to the side, considering him. He seemed to be waiting for a response after that, so I chirped at him again and his face split open in that odd way human's faces often do before they make happy noises. How odd it must be to have no beak.

He set down the bottle then, and held out his arm in my direction, and truthfully I was very glad that he had set down the bottle first. If he had offered it in my direction, I might have been so afraid that he would throw it at me that I would have flown off, and I'd have hated to leave just then. Instead though, he offered me an empty hand, with a single finger extended. I cocked my head at him again, unsure, but then he whistled invitingly at me again. I thought I realized what he must want, but I steeled myself that there was no way he was going to get it. No matter how interesting, and thus far nonthreatening this human had been, there was absolutely no way I was going to let him touch me, let alone sit in his hand of my own free will. I held my ground and simply waited to see what he would do.

Eventually he let out a great sigh and dropped his arm back to his side.

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John sighed and offered the bird a sad little smile. Offering it his finger had been beyond a long shot, but with everything that had already happened he'd been willing to run the risk of making a fool of himself – Although truth be told, the amount of alcohol he'd consumed earlier in the day probably also had something to do with that.

John leaned back against the wall behind him and simply surveyed the little brown bird on the fire escape. It was still watching him intently, tipping its head periodically from one side to the other, but showed no inclination to approach him further. John made a mental note to get something tomorrow to tempt it closer, maybe some bread or something.

A cold breeze gusted momentarily through the streets, reaching between the buildings and down into the alley. John shivered slightly and pulled his worn coat tighter around himself - He'd always hated the cold. His partner in the CIA had often made fun of himself for it when they were opportunity in more northern regions. He watched as the little bird puffed itself up against the cold and he couldn't quite suppress a small chuckle at how ridiculous the thing looked, fluffed up like a feathery pom-pom. He thought how nice it would be to have downy feathers to keep off the bitter chill of New York's winter, but then realized that the bird would probably just fly south once it got too cold. He found himself unexpectedly saddened by the thought that it would probably be leaving soon, but shook it off.

He shivered again mentally at the thought of the coming winter. The alcohol would help to stave off the cold, but it could only do so much to keep him warm. At the thought, John reached instinctively for the bottle next to him and had it halfway to his lips before he realized something was wrong. His eyes flickered up to the bird to find it looking ready to bolt if he so much as blinked. John was no expert in animals, but the ex-operative recognized a fight-or-flight response when he saw one. Every inch of the little creature's body was tilted and strained, ready to launch itself into the air and escape in a minute. Its feathers, previously soft and fluffy looking, had deflated, but stuck up in places in a way that clearly denoted alarm rather than cold.

John had frozen himself at the sight of the frightened bird. His eyes slid to the bottle in his hand, then back to the bird. It seemed to be watching the bottle itself rather than John. John considered the situation, and then in a flash of intuition John realized that it was afraid he was going to attack it with the bottle. He reasoned that if the little bird had encountered other unruly looking men, smelling of booze and toting half-empty bottles on the streets before - it was entirely likely that some of those bottles might have been thrown impolitely in its direction.

Playing his hunch, John slowly lowered his arm and set the bottle back on the pavement, placing it a little farther away than it had been before. The bird's eyes still didn't leave him, and its feathers were no less ruffled, but the tension in its frame fell away bit by bit.

"There there, little guy. I don't know what kinds of drunks you've run into in the past but you don't have to worry with me. I'm hardly likely to go throwing bottles at my only friend," John soothed the creature without thinking. That he had called it friend gave him pause, but in the end he shrugged it off, deciding that if he was going to be a drunken hobo, he could be a crazy drunken hobo too.

He'd promised himself he wouldn't make any more friends. Really, he didn't think he could. Everything in him had gone out of him with the betrayal and Jessica's death, leaving him hollow. If he was going to make a friend, John thought, at least it was this bird that could fly away and never come back when things around him inevitably got dangerously complicated - Or was that complicatedly dangerous?


	3. Naming

Part 3:

The man and I talked, or rather he talked in human language and I answered with chirps and whistles. Neither of us really knew what the other was saying, but that didn't mean we didn't understand each other. I didn't know his human words and he couldn't interpret the complex rhythms of my own speech. So instead we spoke in tones and shared just the sounds of our voices with each other. He would whistle and I would trill back and we shared our songs for the whole afternoon, until the sky turned pink again with sunset.

I realized that it was time for me to go, and he must have too because when I looked back at him after checking the sky he offered me his human pre-laugh expression. I tweeted farewell and he made a sort of flipping gesture that would have scared me a lot except I found myself oddly trusting of this human. In any case I recognized the gesture as one I had often seen humans give one another before they parted ways and I took my leave. I was so filled with excitement about the strange human man I had communicated with that I didn't think I'd ever get to sleep that evening. As soon as I settled myself in for the night in Madison Park though, I discovered that I was exhausted. With only a few more stray thoughts for the man, I tucked my head beneath my wing and fell almost instantly asleep.

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John stared after his new friend a long time after the bird had long disappeared into the evening sky. He watched the sky turn dark and the few stars that could be seen over the city came out.

He wondered what he ought to make of what had just happened to him. Surely this sort of thing didn't happen to normal, sane people. He'd heard of stray dogs and even cats becoming attached to hobos and homeless people, fellow street-dwellers. Never though, ad he heard of a bird doing such a thing.

The next day he made sure to visit a shelter and pocketed some bread from the soup line. He didn't drink (much) that morning, feeling the need to keep his wits about him for the first time in a long while. It wasn't as though he had any plans, so he returned to the alley and waited patiently to see if the bird would return, watching the slice of pale, winter-blue sky above the alley.

By mid afternoon he's beginning to question again whether he'd just dreamed the whole thing in a drunken haze. Then the bird appeared. It swooped down from the sky, alighting on the fire escape with a flutter of wings. John whistled a greeting and the bird responded from its perch with a slightly more complex, trilling echo of the same melody.

John fishes in his pockets and extracts a small piece of the bread he stashed there earlier. He offers it to the bird by tossing it gently. It lands about two yards in front of him, safely out of his immediate reach. The bird hesitates, clearly interested in the white bread sitting temptingly on the dingy ground. John whistles invitingly and leans back against the bricks, folding his hands in his lap. The bird hesitates a few moments more, then flutters down from the fire escape, hopping carefully closer along the ground. It picks up the morsel of bread and hops back a few feet, watching him over the bread trapped in his beak.

John watched, strangely fascinated by how the bird ate the bread. He'd never been particularly interested in birds, and just generally ignored them, fixing his attention on things much more important to the success of his missions and to his own survival. Suddenly though, he found his attention fixed on this small creature, watching it use its tiny talons and beak to tear off pieces, then throwing its head back to swallow. He dimly remembered hearing somewhere that birds were the closest living relatives to dinosaurs, and observing the way it tore at the bread, he found he fully believed it.

He offers the bird more pieces of bread, dropping them steadily closer to himself and forcing it to come closer for each piece. Finally he stopped when he was holding the last piece between his thumb and forefinger. He made eye contact with the bird and whistled encouragingly.

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I tilted my head and asked in the driest tones I could manage, "Surely you don't expect me to come up there to get that?" Naturally, he did not understand me and remained unabashed, still holding out the hand pinching the last piece of bread in my direction.

The man whistled again and said something short in what was unmistakably a challenging tone. I've never been one to turn down a challenge, often to my personal woe. So against all my instincts and my better judgment, I found myself accepting. I hopped forwards and with no further warning, fluttered up into the air. I landed myself on top of his hand, grasping the fleshy part of his human thumb-finger tightly to keep myself steady. I knew that my small talons are pricking into his skin and it is probably uncomfortable for him, but he doesn't flinch or try to throw me off, so I don't hesitate. I snatch the bread from his fingers with my beak and look him in the eyes as if to say "There, I did it." His expression though, gave me pause. He was looking at me with a strange, indecipherable look in his eyes and instantly I was afraid again. _It was a trap! He's got me now! Maybe he's going to hurt him for pricking his hand with my claws!_ All these thoughts rushed through my head as I was filled with desperate terror, frozen and unable to fly away.

Instead of trapping me or hurting me though, the human man just smiled at me and brought me a little closer to his body by pulling back his arm.

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John had been shocked when the bird actually jumped up onto his hand. The rational part of him had simply been playing alone with the rest of him, never really believing that the creature would show that kind of courage. A part of him that he had thought long dead fluttered and took wing on wonder.

He noted how frightened it was, sitting impossibly still like it wasn't even breathing. It held the bread it had daringly won but didn't eat it. It just sat and stared like it didn't dare to break eye contact – not even to blink.

The part of John that had been elated when the bird jumped onto his hand went cold and distant. He thought of how the bird clearly still saw him as a threat, just like so many others. Most of the men he'd killed on missions hadn't known what hit them before they hit the floor. The others though, had they all been so afraid? The bird was so small, so light on his arm, barely the weight of a couple of 19mm Sig rounds, like the ones he'd killed those men with.

The bird didn't fly away though. Maybe it was too scared. It had shown bravery when it had jumped up in the first place though, and John couldn't help but admire the way it boldly held his gaze where men dozens of times its size had quailed. So John just offered it a reassuring smile and pulled his arm in slightly, bringing the bird closer to his body.

"I suppose I'll have to give you a name now," John spoke softly, giving the little brown bird an appraising look. "How about something starting with an 'H'?" The bird just blinked at him uncomprehendingly apparently having relaxed enough to do that. John did his best to project calm and serenity towards the bird as he searched for the right name. "Harriet? No… I think maybe you're a boy, _hmmn_?"

"What about Herbert? Harper? Herman, Hector, Henry? No, no, and no. Howard – No, maybe Harry? Wait, I've got it." A triumphant smile spread across John's face. "Harold. I'll call you Harold. Harold…" He squints slightly, scrutinizing the bird again. John, never being interest in birds, knew very little about species or how to tell them apart, so he gave it his best guess. "Um, I'm not sure but I think maybe you're a finch?" He looks to the bird for confirmation but it only stares unhelpfully back.

"Alright then, Harold the Finch it is. I think it suits you, what do you think, Harold? The newly named Harold only tilts his head in response.

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Humans had this odd habit of naming things. Other animals, birds included, did no such thing. It was all here or there, this or that, you, me, us. Birds knew each other by their feathers and their voices, no names required.

Truth be told though I had always been fascinated by human names for people and places. I had found you could pick them out of human conversations and learn them with relative ease. Humans had names for places and things and themselves and other humans and even for animals – Oh so many names! I'd made a point of learning all the names of the streets in New York and the names of the cities I'd visited. I also made a point of listening in on human conversations and learning from them quite often.

I had learned many of humanity's names for different kinds of animal. I had listened to people on the steps of the library who taught groups of smaller humans gathered around. They showed each other colorful pictures in books and pointed to myself and other creatures in the park, saying their names for us. They had named the pigeons, the robins, the sparrows, and they had called me Wren.

For a while, I did not understand what the man was saying as he held me but did not hurt me. Eventually I came to realize based on his manner of speech and the repetition, that he had picked a name for me. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that I was Wren, not this Finch or this Harold thing. But he didn't understand me when I tried to correct him, and despite myself I found I quite liked the sound of my new name- the new name that had been chosen just for me by the man.

Lacking any other real course of action I sat on the hand of the strange human man who held me but did not hurt me, and wove complicated songs for him. And the whole while he spoke softly to me, calling me Harold and Finch until the sky grew dark.


	4. Farewell

Part 4:

I took to the air as first light broke over the city, leaving my perch in search of breakfast. There was a cold bite to the morning air that didn't quite fade as the sun climbed. I realized then that it was truly time to go South, I could delay no longer. I flitted about, stretching my wings and alighting every couple of blocks on convenient perches to look for likely spots to catch breakfast.

It hadn't frozen hard yet, but the trees were ready for winter and the insects were becoming noticeably thinner on the ground. I managed to find and catch my fill anyway. While I crunched a particularly juicy stinkbug, I began to make plans for my departure. I decided that I should go see the man earlier today and bid him farewell. Then I could take my last looks around the city for the season, pay a final visit to the library and be on my way South before sunset

My thoughts wandered as I finished off my breakfast, and I wondered if the man had eaten yet. Was he hungry? Where did he hunt for his food? I didn't know humans that well, but I certainly saw a lot of them, and I supposed this one looked like it could stand a little fattening up. After giving it several minutes of careful thought, I decided that I would bring the man something to eat. After all, he had shared his delicious bread with me before, I should repay the favor.

I hunted around, passing up several smaller, less choice bugs until I found something worth of presenting to the man. I plucked up a juicy grasshopper, pinching it securely in my beak undaunted by its desperate wriggling. I flew over the city, seeking out the alley where I had met the strange human, finding him just where I had left him. I chirped around my full beak to get his attention. The man startled a little but when he saw me he made his smile face-expression at me. I fluttered down and dropped my gift in front of him, trilling happily as I hopped back so that he would know that it was his to take. The grasshopper was still alive, fresh, though one of its back legs had been mangled by my beak and it squirmed futilely on the ground, trying to tip itself upright.

He watched it, but didn't move to take it right away. I encouraged him with another trill, bobbing up and down a little. Finally, he reached slowly down and picked it up between two fingers. He stared at it for several seconds, looking back and forth between his present and me as I watched him expectantly. He slipped the grasshopper into his coat pocket and patted it, saying something to me. It was the pocket where the bread was before, where he must keep his food. I had seen humans keep food before – it was a silly mammal thing.

He withdrew a small piece of bread from the same pocket and offered it to me. I wasn't particularly hungry, having had breakfast on my way there, but I could hardly turn down tasty bread and I'd be flying a great ways soon. I might not have time to stop as often as I'd like to eat, so I took it and snapped it up.

The man offered his hand to me and I hopped up onto it, wrapping my claws securely around the proffered digits. I realized that I had to tell him I was going south. I couldn't really speak to him but surely humans were aware of our seasonal movements, they themselves certainly noted the change in weather, donning thicker coverings when they moved about outside their dwellings. I tried at first to explain with some simple signals, chirps and hops, lifting his hand slightly and twisting to the South. He did not seem to understand and simply watched me with obvious confusion. When I had exhausted all my ideas, I simply perched, with my head dipped in disappointment. I was entirely at a loss for a means of communicating my meaning to the man.

My saving grace arrived just at that moment through. As a flock of Canadian Geese flew almost directly overhead, their distinctive "V" formation pointed determinedly south. We both lifted our heads to follow the path of the noisily honking creatures. I seized my chance and fluttered for his attention, opening my wings and pointing my beak after the geese as they disappeared over the rooftops. Finally he seemed to understand – or at least I hoped he did. I could hardly telegraph my intentions more plainly then that.

He said something that had my name in it and stroked one of his fingers, (longer than my whole body), more gently than I'd have thought him capable, over my head and down my back. He made a small, calculated gesture with the hand I was sitting on, tossing me carefully into the air. As I lifted myself above the rooftops, I looked back at him and silently promised to come back for him in the spring - promised not to forget him.

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John blinked down at the bug on the ground in front of him. The bird, Harold now, he supposed, chirped and bobbed its head in a way that he strongly suspected was meant to be encouraging. He picked up the insect gingerly and inspected it. It struggled, one leg dangling uselessly while the others kicked and wriggled in a vain struggle for freedom. He looked back at Harold, but the bird merely chirped at him again.

Realization dawns. It's a gift. Not just a gift, its _food_.

John's stomach rolled as he watched the grasshopper in his grip. He imagined it kicking and twitching its way down his gullet. John realized that he hadn't felt that sort of sensation in a long, long time. Not when he'd executed men and women, when he'd shot guard, target, and witnesses alike - Not even when his own partner had shot him in cold blood. He'd been so cold and then so empty when it was all over. He hadn't thought he'd be able to feel like that anymore, but none the less, he felt that twist in his gut over a maimed bug of all things. He could hardly believe it… Maybe there was hope for him yet.

He slipped the grasshopper into one of his coat pockets and patted the outside of it lightly, hoping that the bird would think he was saving it for later and stop giving him that disconcertingly intense stare. (It was actually starting to become a little unnerving.) He could dispose of the poor insect later when Harold had gone so he wouldn't hurt his friend's feelings. He fished out a morsel of bread from his pocket, offered it in thanks, and when Harold accepted it he offered his hand as a perch.

John lifted him up and inspected him closely, turning his hand slightly to get a better look at Harold's sides and back. The ghost of a smile crept onto John's features as he observed the bird twist its neck to keep watching him steadily, tilting it's head in that distinctly avian way. John leaned in close to see the edges of the fine chocolate colored feathers that covered Harold's head and back. His smile broadening as he noted the stark stripe of white that arched over each of Harold's eyes like an eyebrow giving the bird a permanently concerned and slightly fierce expression. Harold seemed to return John's scrutiny, head twitching minutely from side to side as he studied the human's strange, featherless face. Taking in the soft fleshy beak above the mouth and lingering on slightly hollow grey eyes.

John was startled when Harold began chirping and flapping animatedly, twisting his body. He stopped after a minute and fixed his expectant gaze on the human. John was at a loss. He couldn't even begin to guess what Harold was trying to communicate. After a few more minutes of confusion they were interrupted by the distinct honks of a flight of geese passing overhead. John looked up at them, noting the V of their flight formation pointing due south. A frantic flutter of activity on his hand drew his attention back to Harold. When their gazes me again, Harold abruptly stopped his fluttering, instead throwing out his wings and pointing with his beak steadily after the departing geese. Suddenly it dawns on John exactly what Harold wants him to understand. He sized up the little bird perched on his finger and couldn't imagine such a delicate creature braving the bitter New York winter. As it was, the downy feathers covering his body were already perpetually slightly puffed to ward off the steadily cooling weather.

"I guess it's time for you to fly south then. Huh, little finch? Guess I'll see you when you get back then, Harold."

In truth, John held little hope of seeing the bird again. Surely the fact that it had returned to him so many times already was just some kind of fluke. The separation of a whole season would surely be time enough to make the creature forget, or at least lose interest in him. Though years of practice in espionage kept entirely off his features, there was a decidedly bitter twist in his stomach at the realization.

John reached out and with impossible care, stroked down the feathers of Harold's back and silently wished him a safe trip to whatever, more temperate destination he had in mind. With the slightest tossing gesture, he lofted Harold into the air as the bird caught the idea and spread his wings.

John watched him go with a decidedly wistful smile on his lips, gazing out into the cloudless, blue sky long after the shape of the tiny bird had disappeared over the rooftops. He reached blindly down and picked up the half full bottle that had been resting all but forgotten against the wall there. Gazing at his own distorted reflection in the glass, he also noticed the reflected flashes of pale blue along the neck of the bottle. John spent a moment pondering the endless sky and his only friend that had disappeared into it before he brought the bottle to his lips and drained it in one go.

No doubt about it, it was going to be a bad winter.

Notes:

This chapter was actually supposed to end with something even more tragic than this, if you can imagine, but this chapter just sort of wrote itself to a natural close and it didn't seem right to tack the next part on to it.  
I finally to to talk about wren eyebrow markings, you don't even know how long I've been waiting for an appropriate opportunity to slip that in there.  
Also I'm going to come clean and admit this now, and this may forever scar your tender memory of the scene in this fic... But I've clearly read to much fanfic smut because while I was writing the bits about Harold perching on John's hand, every time I tried to mention John's fingers it kept sounding like porn, no matter what I did. The next morning my best friend was treated to about three texts of me flipping out about it at 3am.

Anyway, hopefully the next chapter shouldn't be such a long wait, I've got it partially outlined already and I know pretty well how the rest should go, no great looming dilemmas to hold it up.

Thanks for reading guys, and feel free to leave me a review and/or drop me a line about anything, including spelling, grammar, typos etc. I have one reader who is kind enough to send me corrections pretty quickly usually, but I don't actually have a beta, so they're there...


	5. Impact

Part 5:

I squeezed through book cases, hopping through the hidden corridor created by the cut pages of books pressing in from either side. I sniffed the aging paper and rubbed the side of my beak along the battered edge of a hardbound's cover. I found one of my favorite spots, a space near the end of a shelf, closed in by books on two sides, the wooden support column of the shelves on a third, leaving the forth a narrow zigzagging path between the books that served as my entrance and exit. It was on a high shelf, not quite the top, but requiring a step stool for the patrons and librarians to reach. Better still, the books that concealed the space were thick and dusty. They smelled f old ink on yellowing pages, undisturbed for years. They hadn't been taken down in a very long time, and were perhaps on a subject of little interest to the humans. I myself had no idea what their contents concerned, as I knew how to read very little of the humans' strange symbols, and in any case, I had never been on the other side of the shelves to see the writing on the spines that apparently described the contents.

I settled there, nestled comfortably in a small pile of paper bits I'd brought in with me over my many visits. Gum wrappers, torn newspaper corners, discarded receipts, and the like, all crumpled up and neatly trapped between the tightly pressed book walls. I stayed there for several hours, just enjoying the stillness the library, silence broken by the cautiously quiet shuffling of humans and pages – a wholly different experience than the always bustling never sleeping city that existed outside of the walls. I sat and breathed in the smell of books, of paper and binding glue, ink and gilded spines. I knew I would be back, but I needed the time to prepare to leave. The silence and the security of my hidden nest gave me a chance to reflect on the familiar bustle of the city I would be leaving for the unfamiliar surroundings of open countries and strange cities similar but so unlike my beloved New York.

When I felt sufficiently prepared, I worked my way out of my hiding place, winding through the inner shelf space until I found my way out and discretely up between a gap in the shelves. I went through my usual vent and eventually emerged out under the eaves, facing west towards the gradually pinking horizon. I took flight, pushing off the library building and into the chill Atlantic Breeze.

I flew with no care, "in the zone" so to speak, steadily flapping my wings keeping the setting sun on my right without a thought. The city thrummed below me, rush hour was just past its peak, a steady stream of cars bustling through the major thoroughfares. I was over tighter streets, closed in on all sides by apartments when it happened.

There was a sharp crack, cutting through the city noise and starting me out of my flying zen. Milliseconds later something went by faster than I could see, clipping the tips of my feathers. Startled and frightened I flailed, losing altitude. I managed to regain enough control to narrowly avoid slamming into a traffic light, but that left me spinning towards the ground again. I checked my decent, and was finally able to pull up inches above the pavement and fought to climb again. It was harder to gain altitude than it should be and I realized that the primaries on my right wing were damaged, the ends sheared off. I fought to get higher, to get up off the road bed, out of the dangerous flow of traffic. I flipped to the side to avoid a car as it roared past, but before I could regain myself fully to continue my desperate climb, I realized that it was already too late.

I had evaded one car, but now in the other lane, I was confronted by the sight of one of the hulking vehicles the humans called a "City Bus", barreling towards me from the other direction. There was no time for me to get out of the way, absolutely no chance to avoid it. So I closed my eyes and tried to brace myself.

There was a sickening cracking sound, partly the windshield of the bus, and partly something else that I wasn't prepared to think about. Everything went white behind my closed eyelids, and I was flying – falling. Then I felt myself hit what must have been the pavement and everything went abruptly black.


End file.
